“He’s a lawyer,” Chelle explained.
“A good one. What’s with all the cinnamon toast?”
Chelle said, “The cook made it for us.”
The lost woman nodded. “She made him do it.” After a glance at Tooley’s card the lost woman added, “I asked for cinnamon toast, Mr. Tooley, and she’s a very kind person.”
“I know,” Tooley said.
“I didn’t even have to pull my gun.” Chelle took a piece of cinnamon toast. “We’ll call this the appetizer before our early lunch.”
“It looks like you just finished breakfast. You sure you want lunch?”
“I’ll order something light, like a roast pig with an apple in its mouth. You know. Have you got me a job?”
“I think so. They want to talk to you first, but you’re a natural and I’ve got the screwdriver.” Tooley demonstrated, tightening an imaginary screw. “We used to use the Zygmunt agency, a little shop over on a hundred and fifty-first, only Zygmunt’s dead and it looks like they’ve closed. So we’re looking at some others.”
“He’s talking about private investigators,” Chelle told the lost woman. “Lawyers use them all the time.”
“Right. This outfit, Confidential Security Research, would love to have our business. I’ve told them they ought to staff up a little for us, and I’ve made an appointment for you.”
“Honestly, Mick, I’d like to get this job because somebody wants me.”
The lost woman said, “You are.”
Tooley looked startled, then nodded. “That’s right. And they’ll want you, too, once they get to know you. You’ll see.”
“I hope so.” Chelle’s coffee cup was empty; she pushed it away.
“And another thing,” announced the lost woman, who no longer looked even a little bit lost. “I’ve been thinking and thinking, and I’ve finally remembered the name of that girl I went to school with. Her name was Shelly. Shelly something with a B. Shelly Blaine or something like that.”
“Was she nice?” Chelle asked.
The no longer lost woman slid to the end of her seat and stood. “Very nice. Good at games, you know, and she could run like the wind. But a really nice girl. Now I’ve got to go. It was wonderful talking to you, but if I’m going to see Jack I’ve got to get started.”
“Who was she?” Tooley asked when she had gone.
“A girl I went to school with, only her name was Martha Watson then. She used to help me with my math.”
“Are you sure you’re up to eating lunch?”
“I told you, a wild boar’s head with an apple in its mouth. Those things take a long time to cook.”
Tooley took a bite of cinnamon toast. “This is good.”
“You’re hungry. I bet you didn’t eat breakfast this morning. I’ll eat the toast and I might steal your food, too. Now order something.”
Tooley did. The café was beginning to fill, harried office workers with an hour for lunch and no time to look at the menu. The waitress who had taken Tooley’s order brought Chelle more coffee.
Not long after that, an Army officer came in. Chelle, who had to repress the impulse to stand and salute, needed a full six seconds to recognize him. Tooley, who did not, took even longer.
By which time Skip had reached their booth. “Glad I found you,” he told Chelle. “I was going to call you after I got some lunch.”
“You joined.” For an instant Chelle’s voice faltered. “You’re JAG, by God!”
Tooley said, “What’s that?”
“He’s in the Judge Advocate General’s Department.” Chelle pointed. “See? Crossed gavels on his lapels.”
“Nobody knew where you were, Skip.” Tooley seemed on the point of stammering.
“Luis did, he just wasn’t talking. I asked him not to, in case I washed out.”
Chelle said, “You’re a major, so you didn’t.”
“Correct. I didn’t. They call it officers’ school. Do you know about it?”
Chelle nodded.
Tooley said, “I don’t. What is it?”
“Easier than I expected, for one thing. Basically, it’s a three-week crash course in how to be an officer. How to salute and return salutes, how to wear the uniform, the moral code expected of an officer and so forth. Say that some kid just out of law school wants to join. He looks good, he’s physically fit, and they need him. They send him to officers’ school, and he’s commissioned as a second lieutenant when he finishes it.”
“You’re not a second lieutenant,” Tooley said. “Major sounds pretty important.”
Skip shrugged. “I’ve been practicing law for over twenty years, and I’ve made something of a reputation, so that’s one thing. Another is that my field is criminal law, which is basically what military law is. Disobeying an officer’s direct order is a crime, punishable by death or such lesser penalty as the court may decree, et hoc genus omne. But is Private Doe guilty of it? Were there mitigating circumstances? It’s all pretty familiar.” Skip paused. “Another thing was that I was asking to go into space.”
Despite the noise surrounding them, Chelle’s gasp was audible.
Skip grinned. “They don’t hear much of that. Most of those new lieutenants want to stay right here, so there was that. Still another thing was that a second lieutenant my age would look silly.”
Chelle said, “You’re going up there.” It was not a question.
“I am. I’d been holding out for a captaincy, telling them I wouldn’t enlist without it. General Le Tourneur called me in. He’s the Judge Advocate General, the Armed Service’s top attorney. We must have talked for an hour or more, but main things were that he was going to make me a major, and as soon as I was actually out there I would be promoted again, jumping a grade to full colonel.”
“You were going to call me.” Chelle’s voice quavered. “You said that.”
“I was. I wanted to tell you where I was going, and why.” Skip paused again, waiting for a question; but none came. “I can’t tell you what planet they plan to send me to. That would be secret even if I knew it, and I don’t. The why…” He shrugged. “I suppose it’s obvious enough.”
“I’d like you to say it just the same.”
“All right. I want us to be about the same age. It won’t be exact, I know; but we’ll be a lot closer than we are now. My hair will be a little grayer and a little thinner. You’ll be a middle-aged woman. If you want me, I’ll be yours for the asking. If you don’t…” He shrugged. “I’ll try to find something else to live for.”
Tooley said, “What about the firm? You’ll be creating one hell of a vacancy.”
“Ibarra can run things in my absence, and do it about as well as I could.” Skip was brusque. “As for me, I’m a senior partner, and I’ll remain a senior partner. There are hardnosed statutes protecting the rights of men and women who go into the armed services. If you don’t know about them, I advise you to bone up on them.”
He turned back to Chelle. “A court will void our contract if you try hard enough. Mick can tell you all about that. You may have contracted with him or someone else by the time I’m sent home. I realize that. If you haven’t—well, you know. Now it’s goodbye until then.”
“Not before I kiss you. Get out of the way, Mick.”
Tooley slid to the end of the seat and stood, and Chelle slid as he had, rose, and embraced Skip. “I can’t make a kiss last twenty years,” she told him, “but I’m going to try.”
It was in fact a long, long kiss. When it was over, Skip turned and left the café.
Chelle followed him and stood on the sidewalk watching him—his bright blue dress uniform made him stand out—and heard not a word when her heart poured from her lips. “I didn’t want to tell you, but now you can’t hear me. And they’ll be after me, whoever it was that hired Ortiz and his gang. You wondered why they wanted you? Why they sent Achille for you, to bring you back to them? It was because they wanted me, and you should have seen what they did to me when they had me, trying so hard to drag out Jane Sims and everything she knew.”